Light sources are widely used in a variety of different scientific and technical instruments and devices, including optical microscopes, spectrometers, microarray scanners, cameras and other types of image-recording devices, and are additionally used for illumination, data and image transmission, and in a variety of other applications. Initially, light sources were predominantly based on heated filaments or arc-generated plasmas, including many different types of incandescent lights, mercury arc lamps, xenon lamps, metal-halide lamps, and hybrid arc lamps that use combinations of light-emitting substances, including mercury-xenon arc lamps. During the past 50 years, developments and breakthroughs in physics and materials science have produced many additional types of light sources, including lasers, light-emitting diodes (“LEDs”), and microscale and nanoscale light emitters, including quantum dots. There are significant constraints and parameters to be considered when selecting light sources and adapting light sources to particular applications, including selecting light sources for particular scientific instruments and analytical processes. In many cases, light with wavelengths within a certain portion of the electromagnetic-radiation spectrum, such as the wavelength range corresponding to visible light, is desired, and light with wavelengths in other portions of the electromagnetic-radiation spectrum, including ultra-violet light and shorter-wave-length radiation, are undesirable. Furthermore, particular applications may require a particular minimum photon flux, and may require that the light be delivered, from the light source, through particular transmission media and through apertures of particular dimensions. Researchers and developers of scientific and technical instrumentation and devices, and manufacturers and inventors of such instruments and devices, continue to seek suitable light sources for particular applications.